What is the Best Bass Distortion Pedal?

Jun 30 2024

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Mute backing track

I love using guitar pedals on bass and experimenting with finding the "magic sauce" for a great, gnarly, distorted bass tone. Often, when I get an overdrive, fuzz or distortion for a guitar demo, I try it on bass as well. I found quite a few gems that way and I'd like to show you my favorites.

Fairfield Circuitry The Unpleasant Surprise

This joke is probably overused everywhere somebody talks about this pedal, but The Unpleasant Surprise is always a rather pleasant surprise.

It manages to produce a certain feel and attack on bass that I couln't get from any other pedal. The setting I found is thumpy and gated and has subtle upper octave harmonics and artifacts that make it sound interesting.

Get it from Perfect Circuit*.

Also check out my full guitar demo.

Champion Leccy The Divvy V3

The Divvy is a genius pedal. I only had it on loan from my dude @dotssounds, but I've been on the hunt to get one for myself ever since.

I loved it on guitar and it's equally awesome on bass. It adds that typical character from harmonic percolator circuits, let's through enough low end and on top of that, it has a unique, saggy feel to it that makes it very expressive.

Get it from Perfect Circuit*.

Zvex Effects Mastotron

The Mastotron easily delivers some extra oomph in the low end. It has a significant mid scoop, so it's perfect if you want to make space for a busy guitar track. On bass, it can add significant body and weight to a mix, while it's sizzle is enough to cut through and add some aggression.

Get it from Perfect Circuit*.

Also check out my full guitar demo.

Zvex Effects Basstortion

The Basstortion pretty much delivers what it says on the tin. It's a distortion pedal that's made for bass. It lets plenty of low end through and has a nice, aggressive distortion sound.

Get it from Perfect Circuit*.

Zvex Effects Woolly Mammoth

The Woolly Mammoth is a unique animal and a long-time classic for bass distortion. It is gated and wild and can transform your boring clean bass into a grunty synth-like monster.

Get it from Perfect Circuit*.

Beautiful Noise Effects Exploder

The Exploder is nicely aggressive. Even though the knobs are tiny, the EQ section is very powerful. This has been one of my go-to distortion pedals for bass because it's always easy to mold into a mix and make the bass fat and gnarly.

Get it from Sound Shoppe NYC.

Also check out my full guitar demo.

Spun Loud Shuksan Fuzz

The Shuksan is one of my favorite fuzz overall for guitar and bass. The way I like to set it, there is a little gating going on.

Even though there is no real EQ control on it, this just magically works on bass and in most tracks that call for distorted bass, it works super well with little post-processing.

The trick is to set the input low so the signal doesn't choke out with all the low end coming into the circuit.

If you're in the US, easiest way to get it is from Spun Loud directly.

UK folks can snatch one from Break The Machine.

Also check out my full guitar demo.

Twilight Pulse Audioworks Proxima

Although the control set on the Proxima is minimal, it's a very versatile distortion/fuzz/overdrive. It naturally excels on bass and it's one of my go-to pedals if I just need a nice sounding, overdriven bass.

Get directly from Twilight Pulse Audioworks.

Also check out my full guitar demo.

Smallsound/Bigsound Mini

If you've been following me for a while, you know that the Mini is one of my favorite pedals overall. It's a great distortion for bass as well.

If you're lucky enough to own a Mini, you might be tempted to turn the bass knob up all the way – don't! It's a pre-gain bass control and it will choke out the circuit. There's still plenty of low end coming through if the bass knob is set to noon-ish.

Check out my full guitar demo.

OKKO FX Motörbass

The Motörbass has a very unique sound. It does a great job pretending to be one of Lemmy's Marshall amps. It seems to have more mids and upper mids and adds more presence to a bass line than most other distortion pedals.

Get it directly from OKKO FX.

Also check out my full bass demo.

Malekko Diabolik

Since I play a JMJ Fender Mustang bass, I figured why not go all the way and try the Diabolik fuzz. Malekko developed this to be Justin Meldal-Johnsen's signature fuzz and it turned out to be one of the most unique sounds in this shootout.

The throaty, gated and aggressive sound is perfect for a bass that needs to cut through a mix.

It has its origins in the Maestro Brassmaster, which inspired the Malekko B:Assmaster, which the Diabolik fuzz is a refined version of.

You might be lucky and get one from Malekko Heavy Industry directly when they're in stock again.

JPTR FX Warlow

The Warlow is an op-amp Big Muff style fuzz. My favorite feature on it is the 3-way toggle to switch between different tone stacks. Up is the typical Big Muff mid-scooped tone stack, down is a RAT-type filter and in the middle, it's a mix of both.

With the Warlow turned on, the bass signal feels like it has some extra weight and bite at the same time.

Get it directly from JPTR FX.

Also check out my full guitar demo.

JPTR FX Jive

From all the pedals in this shootout, the Jive is the most tame ovedrive/distortion. You can certainly dial it to 11 and engage all the clipping diodes and wield your amp into submission as well.

For my taste, it works best when setting it more moderately to preserve low end and articulation.

Jive adds just the right amount of saturation to make the bass more present in the mix without taking over.

Get it directly from JPTR FX.

Also check out my full guitar demo.

Freqscene Effects Co. Nouveau Riche

I just recently got my hand on th Nouveau Riche. Like many pedals in this shootout, this was originally designed for guitar, but it works great on bass as well.

With the slide switch set to +, it let's through extra low end. With it's internal charge pump, it has more headroom and can handle more bass signal without choking out.

This is how I always wanted a RAT to sound on bass.

Get it directly from Freqscene Effects Co..

Also check out my full guitar demo.

Signal Chain

JMJ Mustang Bass with Ernie Ball roundwound strings and Curtis Novak Fat Mustang pickups, played with 0.73mm Dunlop Tortex pick
Keeley Electronics Compressor Mini for some mild compression. I did cheat a little bit and turned off the compressor for the ZVEX Woolly Mammoth because they didn't play well together.
One of these fine distortion pedals
Bogren Digital Bassknob STD set to clean
UAD Pultec EQP-1A to shape some mids (makes the bass stand out a little more against the drums and it's easier to hear differences between the pedals)
Some more EQ with the stock Logic Pro X Channel EQ to make the bass sit well in the mix

This might sound like a lot of post-processing. I you look at it as if the whole post-processing chain was a mic'd up amp, it's not that much. I kept the post-processing the same for all pedals to make the comparison fair, except for the Woolly Mammoth as mentioned above.

Here you can get a glimpse at my post processing plugins for mixing bass. I use very similar settings when mixing bass for backing tracks when I produce guitar-focused demos.